Tag: Matt Letourneau

Dulles district supervisor Matt Letourneau got raked over the coals in a letter to Leesburg Today, for not warning his constituents that Dominion Virginia Power planned to run power-lines directly along Route 50. Big ones, too. Like this one:

Letourneau didn’t warn anyone because (he says) he didn’t know. His challenger, Anjan Chimaladinne, is pointing out that, after having multiple meetings with Dominion, months ahead of time, Letourneau should have known. Anjan is right, and it proves conclusively that he should be the next district supervisor.

Albeit with different boundaries, I was the previous Dulles supervisor. I regularly met with representatives of businesses and other groups that wanted to build projects in our district. As a Democrat, I knew that a lot of those projects were sponsored by entities that don’t typically support us lefties. Still, we met, and, as best I could, I made sure I was able to pass reliable, complete information to my constituents. Letourneau, as a Republican, particularly as a Republican associated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and most particularly as a Republican associated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in his capacity as a public relations expert on energy, should have known what Dominion was doing.

In a stridently defensive letter of his own, Letourneau goes on at great length, recounting the extensive history of his many contacts with Dominion, including the public-input phase that he apparently wants credit for having helped orchestrate. A funny thing to brag about, however, when, in his own words, Letourneau says, “the public outreach process was for show.” After all those meetings, how could Letourneau not have known that?

…the public outreach process was for show.

In his letter, Letourneau starts out by attacking the writer of the letter complaining about his ineffectiveness, saying it was written by, “a long-time Democratic activist.” Why that’s a defense, he doesn’t say. What’s important, however, is that Letourneau, a long-time Republican activist, is supposed to be the friend of business (as all Republicans say they are). If anyone should have been able to build a relationship of trust with, and get straight information from, Dominion Virginia Power, wouldn’t a Republican say he should have been able to do it? Instead, Letourneau still wants you to vote for him, even though he didn’t know what Dominion was up to, because he got fooled, and he says we shouldn’t blame him for that.

I don’t recall anyone, ever saying my mistakes as a supervisor (yes, I made some) were excusable in those cases where somebody played me. Most certainly, I would not have suggested that being played was an excuse when the issue involved something that was a bedrock Democratic strong-point. Here, an elected Republican whose professional resumé emphasizes his fondness for the energy business community, just got played by one of the biggest energy businesses in Virginia.

If a pro-business Republican, particularly this pro-business Republican, can’t protect you from the public-relations trickery of a major Virginia business, what good is he to you?

If I still lived in the Dulles district, I would vote for change. I would vote for Anjan.